Margaret Thatcher, the first woman ever to serve as prime minister of Great Britain and the longest-serving British prime minister of the 20th century has died at age 87.

"It is with great sadness that Mark and Carol Thatcher announced that
their mother Baroness Thatcher died peacefully following a stroke this
morning," Lord Timothy Bell said today. "A further statement will be
made later."

Thatcher had significant health problems in her later years, suffering several small strokes and, according to her daughter, struggling with dementia.

In Dec. 2012, she was underwent an operation to remove a bladder growth, longtime adviser Tim Bell told The Associated Press.

But during her long career on the political stage, Thatcher was known as
the Iron Lady. She led Great Britain as Prime Minister from 1979 to
1990, a champion of free-market policies and adversary of the Soviet
Union.

Many considered her Britain's Ronald Reagan.
In fact, Reagan and Thatcher were political soul mates. Reagan called
her the "best man in England" and she called him "the second most
important man in my life." The two shared a hatred of communism and a
passion for small government. What America knew as "Reaganomics" is
still called "Thatcherism" in Britain.

Like Reagan, Thatcher was an outsider in the old boys' club. Just as it
was unlikely for an actor to lead the Republicans, the party of Lincoln,
it was unthinkable that a grocer's daughter could lead the
Conservatives, the party of Churchill and William Pitt -- that is, until
Thatcher. She led the Conservatives from 1975 to 1990, the only woman
ever to do so.

Thatcher was born Margaret Hilda Roberts on Oct. 13, 1925 in Grantham,
England. She attended Somerville College, Oxford, where she studied
chemistry, and later, in 1953, qualified as a barrister, specializing in
tax issues.

She married Denis Thatcher on Dec. 13, 1951, and their marriage lasted
for nearly 52 years until his death in June 2003. The couple had twins,
Mark and Carol, in 1953.

When Thatcher was elected to Britain's House of Commons in 1959, she was
its youngest female member. In 1970, when the Conservatives took power,
she was made Britain's secretary of state for education and science. In
1975, she was chosen to lead the Conservatives, and she became the
prime minister in 1979.

Thatcher receives standing ovation at Conservative Party Conference in October 1989. REUTERS/Stringer/Files

Thatcher's admirers say she rejuvenated Britain's faltering economy.
Her critics say the rich got richer and the poor were left behind.

In the inner cities, Thatcherism brought a violent backlash. There were calls from her own party to change course.
But Thatcher resisted.

"You turn if you want to," she said in October 1980. "The lady's not for turning."

She had courage in abundance. In 1982, when Argentina invaded the Falkland Islands, she took Britain to war -- and won.

In 1984, she narrowly escaped being killed when the IRA bombed her hotel
during a party conference. The morning after, she convened the
conference on schedule -- undaunted.

She recognized Mikhail Gorbachev as a man who could help to end the Cold War, commenting famously, "I like Mr. Gorbachev. We can do business together."

Ronald Reagan
thought so, too. Together, Thatcher and Reagan savored victory in the
Cold War as their proudest achievement. But while Alzheimer's forced
Reagan to retire from public life, Thatcher kept on long after leaving
Downing Street.

She became Baroness Thatcher, a symbolic leader for a party that struggled to find a worthy successor.

By the time of President Reagan's funeral in 2004, Lady Thatcher had
already suffered several strokes. She was a silent witness at her
friend's farewell, but she had the foresight to record a eulogy for
Reagan several months earlier.

"As the last journey of this faithful pilgrim took him beyond the
sunset, and as heaven's morning broke, I like to think -- in the words
of Bunyan -- that 'all the trumpets sounded on the other side," she
said.